.. the game of mutual self-destruction ..

[Arralen]

We all played Stars!, didn't we? In Stars!, minerals for shipbuilding where limited. In the endgame, when all tech was research, all planets colonized, all mines depleted, things boiled down to grabbing the most minerals from battle debris and getting as much races' home planets as possible, as those couldn't be depleted completely. But you had build a big empire and a mighty fleet till than, and the finale could have been furious, which thousands of ships meeting to battle it out.

DOM2 isn't about empire building.
It's even not about dominion building (gaining worshippers) or the ascend to goodhood.

It's a game of mutual self-destruction:

• Even without illfortune, random events kill of the pop, but I yet have to see any growth from them:
  
  - first turn Multiplayer:
  Ulm, Order+1, Luck 0; .. "province flooded, 1/2 pop dead" ... game over
  
  - 31st turn SP:
  Man, Order 0, Luck+3 ..still no hero (looks like turmoil would help, however?) .. but "everyone in the province has turned into mindless plants" .. 30000 -> 1500 pop .. as there are _very_ few provinces on all maps with that much pop, this is game over as well
  
  
• number of races/themes which use death dominion, death scale, extensive blood and death summoning which eat up pop has increased
  -> suggesting TienChie Barbarian Kings gettings troops through pillaging wouldn't help here either
  
• a lot of things produce unrest (turmoil, conquering, events, spells ...).
  Quelling unrest kills pop.
  (those few bandits from 120% taxes are sufficient to negate growth+3)
  
• provinces have shrinked in size considerably. Has anyone seen 30.000-pop provinces besides the capitals on any map? Seems most prov are aroud 7000 pop or less now, which are killed of easily.
  
• The AI seems fond of death scale, though it doesn't really understand how to use these strategies .. . It's tedious seeing Jotumheim and Vanheim both using death 1 in the same game, killing themselves off as they could't afford their expensive commanders after some time. Ermor had troubles gettings buildings in Dom2, but at least there where plenty of units. Things have gotten worse now.
  

What would I like to see changed:

1. make pop grow (death1 cancels)
2. make pop move from death dom. provinces
3. turn down the severity of the random events. (Even with turmoil 3, luck 3 I yet haven't seen any additional pop from them - but a lot of pop dying)

yours,
Stefan

[ November 22, 2003, 08:03: Message edited by: Arralen ]